Sacred Hunger

Winner of the Booker Prize

Liverpool, 1752. William Kemp has lost a fortune in cotton speculation, and must recoup his losses if his son is to marry the wealthy woman whom he loves. His last resort is a slave ship, one that will take him to the Guinea coast, where he will trade for human cargo, then embark on the infamous Middle Passage. When disease ravages the ship and the African prisoners mutiny, William’s profit-seeking venture falls apart. Slaves and sailors alike will join together to found a utopian community on the coast of Florida—not knowing that the vengeful, younger Kemp is in pursuit. Unsworth’s tour de force is a profound meditation on the sacred hunger—the greed—couched within human nature, animating the slave trade. It is a novel that transcends its setting, illuminating larger truths that resonate to this day.

• The Narrow Road to the Deep North
• The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
• Elmet
• The Quality of Mercy
• Days Without End: A Novel
• Imagine Me Gone
• The Luminaries
• The Overstory: A Novel
• His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae (Man Booker Prize Finalist 2016)
• Less (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): A Novel